A Lakewood man sent to prison for six years Monday for bilking the state’s Old Age Pension system out of $1 million has sparked a call to strengthen regulations so the program is tougher to abuse.

Jeffrey Dan Van recruited 45 elderly Vietnamese immigrants to falsely sign up for the Old Age Pension, a 72-year-old program that provides aid to Colorado’s elderly poor.

The Vietnamese, all legal immigrants, were from 11 other states, and officials do not think they knew they were part of any crime.

Dan Van told Jefferson County Human Services caseworkers he was helping the immigrants sign up for the state benefit and would act as their translator.

He filled out the application forms, using addresses of his family members and friends in Jefferson County, and put his cellphone number as the contact. Because it doesn’t take much more documentation to get the extra income — meant to supplement Social Security — Dan Van collected as much as $600 a month per person from 2001 through 2008. County officials say he gave the people participating a small amount and kept the rest for himself.

“The crux of this is that he discovered a loophole,” said Lynnae Flora, director of community assistance for Jefferson County Human Services. “On the face of it, the program is not duplicitous or wrong, a lot of times people need help . . . But some people are taking advantage of this.”

To qualify for the cash benefit, which can range from $10 to $699 a month, a person must be 60 and can’t generate more than $699 in gross income a month.

At swamped county human services offices, intake workers ask for proof of address, but an Xcel Energy bill can suffice. In Dan Van’s case, he wrote notes in his applicants’ files that they were fighting with their children and staying with friends or family — which were really his friends and family — in Jefferson County.

State law doesn’t require that a person live in Colorado for any set period of time before collecting the money.

Last year, the state spent $83.1 million on Old Age Pension benefits. This year, for 18,843 people, officials expect to spend almost $96 million.

Jefferson County officials were tipped about Dan Van’s scheme three years ago. County investigators worked with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find the immigrants.

In 2006, they cut off Old Age Pension benefits for 36 of the people suspected in Dan Van’s ring and no one called to complain, said Janet Sullivan, the county’s investigations quality assurance supervisor.

County officials suspect Dan Van, as the official translator for those seeking benefits, was not telling them the truth about what they were doing. Since then, the county only uses official translators when people come in seeking help and can’t speak English.

But Flora says they hope to work with lawmakers to tighten the rules surrounding Old Age Pension even more. Littleton Republican state Sen. Mike Kopp said he would be happy to work with county officials to make that happen.

“Obviously, the legislature’s job is to protect the taxpayers and ensure all our programs for the elderly are safeguarded,” Kopp said.

But a “knee-jerk response to a bad actor” will be something AARP will fight, said Morie Smile, state director of the advocacy group for senior citizens.

“These are people who are already in a precarious position, they’re already low-income, they’re already in need,” she said. “Throwing up another roadblock is going to be a slippery slope.”

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